Lymington in Hampshire

Visit Lymington and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Lymington, Hampshire, lies almost on the edge of the New Forest on the Boldre or Lymington river. Most people rush through on their way to catch the ferry to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, so they miss a pleasant small town, with bright cottages and attractive Georgian and 19th century houses in the broad High Street.

The church has a strangely shaped 18th century cupola. The nave and galleries are Georgian, and the north chapel 13th century. The church contains a bust by Rysbrack of Charles Colborne, 1747, and another of Captain Rogers, 1795, by John Bacon, R.A. The poet Coventry Patmore is buried in the churchyard, and another famous writer, Edward Gibbon, once represented Lymington in Parliament.

The town once grew rich from its saitworks, known as ‘salterns’, which were closed in the 19th century, and in the 14th century it supplied far more ships for the invasion of France than Portsmouth. Nowadays boat-building is confined to yachts.

Round and about there is a pleasant heath and woodland, and 1 mile north an ancient Iron Age earthwork with triple rampart called Buckland Rings. In 1744, 2 cwt (2 hundredweight) of Roman coins were dug up here.